


Lavender's Blue

by AquaWolfGirl



Series: Critical Role Multiship Fairytale Series [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Caleb is a cindersweep, Cinderella AU, Cute, Everything Is Fine And Nothing Ever Hurts, F/M, Forbidden Love, Fun, Jester Is A Princess, Lots of Pretty Dresses, Slow Burn, Spot the NPC Cameos, Sweetness and Fluff, We All Need A Little Fluffy Fun These Days I Think, balls, courting, fairytale AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:26:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaWolfGirl/pseuds/AquaWolfGirl
Summary: To gain access to the palace's extensive library, Caleb Widogast gets a job cleaning fireplaces. He's heard a lot about Princess Jester Lavorre - that she's odd, bubbly, excitable, beautiful, energetic, and loves romance despite turning away almost every prince who asks to court her. He never expects to meet her beyond seeing her paintings in the palace. After all, what princess would speak to a cindersweep?Part of a fairytale AU multiship series of fics.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: Critical Role Multiship Fairytale Series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983304
Comments: 13
Kudos: 62





	Lavender's Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Well hello there! Thanks for checking out this little fluffy fic. I've had the idea to do fairytales with all of the Mighty Nein ships I can think up, and of course I had to start with these two adorable darlings. Caleb is just adorable in so many ways, and I love Jester and all her complexities so much. This fic takes place outside of the CR universe - same names, same characters for the most part, but no magic, no big looming enemies, no tragic pasts, everything's fine and nothing hurts. I'll see who I can work in and what part they'll play. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the start of this story - I have so much planned and am so excited to write it!

“She’s … odd. Beautiful, but odd.”

“Pretty little thing, she is. Has more energy than a kitten that drank coffee, though.”

“Looking for a husband and still sliding down bannisters. I don’t understand, but she’s a sweet one, that princess.”

For what it’s worth, a cindersweep at the palace isn’t a terrible position. It’s not even a bad position, truly. The pay is good. There’s food, board, and access to apothecaries and healers.

But then there’s—

“Oh, workin’ at the castle now, aye? Watch out for the princess!”

‘Watch out’. That is a new one.

“I will, thank you,” Caleb says, words a bit awkward and stilted as he stares at the portly baker in confusion. The older man just chuckles, his thick arms filled with some partially burnt loaves that he carries to a sign with a ‘1 SILVER’ sign pinned to the front.

The bell above the door to the bakery chimes merrily as Caleb leaves, clutching a loaf of spiced bread and making his way towards the palace.

For as massive and magnificent as the kingdom of Nicodranas is, and for as diverse as its people are, for as many times as he has inquired about the royal family and what it is like to work for them, he has received the same answer, or at the very least something similar. Queen Marion is a beautiful woman who takes the time to know the name of everyone in the palace, no matter if they advise her or if they peel potatoes for her stews. Everyone he’s asked has spoken of her smile, her lovely voice, the way she makes everyone she encounters feel welcome and warm and at east - the perfect queen, really.

And, truthfully, much of the same is said about her daughter. Beautiful. Pretty. Warm. Intent on knowing everyone within the palace walls. But there are a few … other words used. Energetic and odd seem to be winning, as well as excitable. Talented. Mischievous.

“A sweet tooth like I’ve never known,” he’s heard from one baker, the shop smelling of sweet melted sugar and the shelves stacked high with honied and glazed pastries. “She likes my lemon tarts better than the palace chef’s - but that doesn’t go anywhere!”

But for as lively and lovely as the princess was described, he still hasn’t seen her.

♥

It honestly, truly isn’t a bad job. It’s a bit boring, perhaps, but it gives him ample time to retreat into his mind as he scrubs ashes and soot from the marble fireplaces in more sitting rooms than he can honestly remember.

And after his hands are aching and raw, and his knees are sore and bruised from the floors, and the black has been cleaned from under his nails, he makes his way to the library - the true reason why he asked for the position of a lowly cindersweep.

The pale blue stained glass windows are visible from the middle of the city, shining like a ruby beacon and beckoning all who want to expand their mind and knowledge of the world around them, and the worlds that came before. Attached to the palace, the library is arguably as much of a jewel to Nicodranas as it’s beautiful queen, if not more (though of course he means no offense to Queen Marion).

There are more books than he could read in his lifetime, in twice his livetime, in ten times his lifetime. The shelves reach the sky, it seems, and he is more than happy to climb his way to the stars if it means taking advantage of all the library has to offer. They’re carved with intricate swirls, looking much like the waves and seafoam that crash upon the golden sands of the kingdom’s beaches.

Light pours in from the stained glass, the slight blue hue a calming balm to those who enter. The rest of the library is much the same, with soft, ornate rugs that cost more than he will make in his entire lifetime, tread upon by servants and scholars and pretty much anyone who wishes to learn and read. Of course, there are keepers, watching carefully and ensuring that hands are clean and careful of the delicate parchment and buttery-soft leather of the books. But it is a blessing, truly, to be able to spend time in such a cool, calm haven of knowledge and inspiration.

“I thought you’d be here.”

“There’s no place I’d rather be.”

It was a chance meeting, his first interaction with keeper Beauregard Lionett. The right place, the right time, the right amount of rolls of paper that she was just off balance enough to drop one. He’d like to call the royal archivist and bookkeeper a friend, but that’s truly for her to decide. Still, he enjoys her company, the conversations they have and the low warmth of her voice when she speaks for what seems like hours on end about certain theories.

The young woman leans on the wing-backed chair across from him, her tan skin a stark contrast to the pale seafoam velvet of it. “You washed your hands, right?” she asks, raising a dark brow at him.

Caleb wordlessly holds his hands up. After a week’s worth of work, more work than he’s done in years, his hands are raw. His fingertips are numb, almost blistered, and his nails have been filed short, and they ache and cramp terribly from grasping a scrub brush, but they’re completely spotless. “Ja.”

“Good.” She moves around and drapes herself in the chair. By a basic definition, she does sit in it. Her back end is on the cushion. But her legs are draped over one of the arms, her back braced against the other, one arm in her lap and the other coming up and over the back of the chair. “How’re you settling in?”

“It is more work than I’m used to,” he explains. “Hand work, I mean. I’m not used to scrubbing things. But it’s a simple job, and it means I can read here.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

“Very, yes. I need to repay you for the reference.”

“Nah.” Beau waves her hand dismissively, shaking her head. “Most of the people who come in here are old, boring people. Advisors to the queen and all that. Nice to have someone not boring.”

“The princess doesn’t visit?”

“Oh, she does, she doesn’t count,” Beau replies. “She comes in, grabs whatever new romance novel we just got in, and darts off like a blue tornado.”

A blue tornado. That’s certainly a description, Caleb thinks, blinking as his mind processes the image.

“She should be around here somewhere, I think.”

“Romance novels, you said?”

“So. Many. Romance. Novels.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask what she reads, just out of curiosity, to get to know this blue, excitable whirlwind of a princess just a bit better by touching the pages she has read over and over and over again. But he thinks better of it, and says his goodbyes when Beau says she has work to do.

♥

Perhaps the best thing about being a cindersweep in the palace is just how much he gets to explore.

His rounds are fairly short now, to give him time to learn the basics of scrubbing everything spotlessly and to settle into a routine. To find the methods he likes best, to experiment, find how to work best and fastest.

He has ten rooms in the morning, and ten rooms in the afternoon. Most of these rooms are public, or at the very least accessible to servants and guests of the palace. Drawing rooms, with plush couches of jewel tones and the soft blue-greens of the sea. They have more paintings than he’s ever seen in his entire life, varying in skill and style. Sometimes the walls themselves are painted, one of his favorite rooms covered in little sunflowers, each bloom no bigger than his thumbnail, scattered across the cream paint of the room.

There are portraits, too, because of course there are. Portraits of rulers long passed, portraits of rulers not-so-long-passed, and many, many portraits of the queen and the princess.

There’s not a soul on this continent or even on this earth that would deny the love between Queen Marion and Princess Jester. In every portrait he sees, no matter whether it’s in a more private drawing room or a more public dining room, they hold each other with more love than he’s seen between so many parents and their children. The queen’s hand on her daughter’s shoulder, on her cheek, on her waist, their fingers laced together. Each one smiling brightly, the queen’s a bit softer than her mischievous daughter’s but no less full of affection.

He doubts he’ll ever meet her, but if he does, Caleb’s sure he’d be knocked completely and utterly breathless by how beautiful the queen is. After all, he felt the air leave his lungs at the first portrait he saw of her, with her glowing red skin and soft smile and beautiful, glossy, shining horns. She knows it, too. It’s evident in the fashions she chooses for such portraits, incredibly flattering to her … figure. But with each painted picture, there is warmth, and care, and kindness. What a true queen should be.

And then there is the princess.

Caleb sees her as an infant in some, in frothy lace gowns, cradled against the queen’s chest or on her lap. She’s screaming her little lungs out in one, and Caleb has to smile, glancing over often to where it’s above the fireplace as he works.

He sees her as a toddler in a few, holding her mother’s hand as the queen sits on her throne. Her blue skin is just as radiant as the queen’s, a ribbon in her little hand to distract her as the painter worked. Her horns are smaller, and as he makes his way through the palace, doing his rounds, he gets to see them grow.

The most recent portrait is in the main hall, because of course it is. He doesn’t go there often, because for the most part he uses the servants’ stairs and corridors. But there is one day when the corridors are being swept and waxed and he’d rather not fall on his arse with his bucket of suds and soot, and so he goes around.

It’s massive, and though he doesn’t have anything to go off of considering he’s never met them and he never will, it’s perhaps the most life-like of all of them. The queen sits on her throne, beautiful as ever, in a scarlet gown that drapes beautifully and makes her look like the gem of the kingdom that she is.

Standing by her side is the princess Jester, her horns fully grown and decorated with shining silk ribbons and golden chains dripping with gems. Her gown is strapless, showing off the many necklaces adorning her blue neck and collarbones, and the full skirt comes to just above her ankles, unlike her mothers whose gown pools around her like a ruby sea. A deep sapphire, it’s been painted with silver symbols of the kingdom. Waves along the bottom, vines representing those that grow on the palace walls, each detail immaculate and shining thanks to the skill of the painter.

She’s beautiful, truly. With a much wider and brighter grin than her mother’s soft, warm smile, Caleb can see exactly why the people love her, despite all of her … quirks, so to speak.

He doesn’t see the portrait much, given he doesn’t go that way, but occasionally he’ll find an excuse to go through the main hall just to see the two women and their beauty.

♥

There are instruments in each room he has to clean. So many instruments. Of rich mahogany, inlaid with different metals. Sometimes he’ll see filigree of beautiful gold, thin lines curling and curving across the deep brown surface of a harpsichord. There’s a piano of pink ivory wood, flowers and vines and even a handful of trees making a forest across its cover in rose gold paint. It’s beautiful, truly, and very well loved if the wear and discoloration of the keys are anything to go by.

“Oh, yes, that is Her Majesty Princess Jester’s piano,” his boss says, a man named Henry whose high, nasally voice fits his salt and pepper-ed, large bespectacled visage perfectly. “Beautiful, isn’t it? I wish I could play it, but I never learned, you know?”

It is beautiful. More than once he looks over at it while on his hands and knees in front of the fireplace, soot under his nails and knuckles dry and raw from the soap and scrubbing, and imagines a blue tiefling princess sitting on the ivory velvet bench.

For someone that seemingly everyone knows and has interacted with on some level, by the time a month has gone by and he’s received his second pouch of coins for his wages, he’s surprised he hasn’t seen her. Of course, he never expected to actually meet her or speak to her, but he assumed he’d see her eventually. Climbing up the grand staircase with all of its marble statues and gold railings. Turning a corner of the hallway, skipping or running or spinning, because according to everyone who’s met her, the princess rarely ever _walks._ He even lingered in the library in hopes until the sun set and Beau went around lighting candelabras and sconces, the giant room bathed in a warm, soft glow that made being in it even more pleasant and comfortable than usual.

Still, there’s no sign of the princess.

It’s not until halfway into his second month when he finally sees her.

Sometimes knowledge just can’t wait. The palace is dark, sconces lit to keep some of the shadows at bay, but not all. His footsteps, for as soft as they are, almost seem to echo in the empty hallways as he walks to the library. It’s a far walk from his room, a small almost closet-like space in the servants quarters, but it has a little window overlooking the sea and warm blankets so he really shouldn’t complain, and he won’t. The bed is very comfortable.

The palace is such a hub of activity that it’s almost eerie to walk through it at night. There are a handful of guards making their rounds, peering onto balconies and looking through windows to make sure no one tries to get into somewhere they aren’t supposed to be. But for the most part Caleb is alone with the shadows and silver moonlight pouring in from the large windows.

He learned from Beau that the library is never locked. There is always a keeper behind the desk if someone wants to do some midnight research or read a bedtime story. And he’s grateful for it, nodding to the older man behind the desk with his oil lamp and giant tome and thick glasses. The keeper nods back, and Caleb makes his way to where he knows the folktales are.

It’s just a silly little detail. Or not. If it was enough to keep him awake, to keep his mind racing, then it isn’t truly silly, is it? Or maybe it is. Either way, he has to know whether the two children went into the town first or the forest first, because it’s been driving him mad for the past three hours.

The shelf where the Zemnian folklore is kept is a little further back into the library. There are several rooms that branch off from the main room, but for the most part all of the literature is here. The other rooms hold maps, sketchbooks, reading nooks, study rooms. Places where peace and quiet for concentration is very much needed, or the books require certain care. His slim little book isn’t there, he knows.

The closer he gets, the more apparent it becomes that he’s not alone in the library. And it’s not just him and the keeper.

There’s a fire roaring in one of the grand marble fireplaces. It crackles and spits, warm and bright in the darkness of the library. He can see the silhouette of one of the winged-back chairs, one of the many he’s found comfort in over the past few weeks. And just over the edge, he can see a pair of legs dangling.

Whoever it is is wearing lace. He can see the firelight through the millions of tiny little holes, the delicate fabric draping over kicking feet. A few steps more, and he can hear humming.

Low. Gentle. Almost playful as he approaches as quietly as he can, not wanting to disturb whoever is indulging in some late night reading.

Her laugh startles him. It’s bright, lighting up the library more than the fire and the candles surrounding her. It starts off loud and sharp, before trailing off into delicate giggles. He blinks, watching as a blue hand reaches over and grabs a pastry from a tray on a nearby table.

There isn’t supposed to be eating in the library. But if she’s here with an entire tray of pastries, then the keeper must have seen them. He can’t imagine she snuck them in under whatever lace … thing she’s wearing, without being caught. She's allowed to bring food in, whoever she is. She's allowed to bend the rules.

So that means—

“Oooooooooooooooooooh…..”

She draws out the word, sounding amazed. Caleb hears the gentle crunch of whatever pastry she’d just gotten, some sort of cookie or biscuit. Just one more step—

Now that he’s closer, he can see the firelight glinting off of the princess’s horns. Unlike all of the portraits he’s seen of her, there are no ribbons. There are no chains with diamonds and sapphires and emeralds and rubies dripping off of them. It’s just her, and as he steps around to pull his own book from its shelf, he can see her face.

She’s so captivated by the tome in front of her that she doesn’t notice him as he looks at her. The painter of the portrait in the grand hall is skilled, very skilled. He captured every lash, every line, every curve of her lips and jaw and cheeks and eyes.

There are pastry crumbs on the corners of her mouth, and against her chest where her nightgown doesn’t cover. Pale crumbs from what looks like shortbread with something dark in it, maybe chocolate chips or blueberries or blackberries or something of that sort. The book she has is braced against her knees as she munches, eyes wide and completely captivated as she turns the page quickly.

He grabs his book and leaves, because the last thing he wants to do is disturb the princess during her night reading.

By the time he gently closes the library door behind him, he can’t even remember why he has the book in his hands, remembering sapphire skin and midnight-blue horns and the laughter that lingers in his mind more than the thought that woke him up to begin with.


End file.
